US Cool Planet picks contractor for renewable fuels plant

10 September 2013 17:00[Source: ICIS news]

HOUSTON (ICIS)--Cool Planet Energy Systems has chosen URS as the front-end engineering and design (FEED) contractor for its first plant in Alexandria, Louisiana, the US-based renewable fuels producer said on Tuesday.

The company should break ground on the first plant in early 2014, and operations should start by the end of the year, Cool Planet said.

Construction on the second plant in Natchitoches will begin in the summer of 2015, with completion in the summer of 2016, the company said. The third site will come on line in late 2016 at a site yet to be determined.

Each plant will have a capacity to produce 10m gal/year (38m litres/year) of gasoline.

Cool Planet will use wood waste and forest by-products as a feedstock at the plants.

The company uses a pyrolysis process that converts wood waste into fuel and char.

Cool Planet plans to market the char as a soil additive, since the material is porous, allowing it to retain moisture and nutrients for plants.